


So Let It Out And Let It In

by waterofthemoon



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: spnland, Demons, Domestic, Drabble Sequence, Episode: s01e09 Home, Episode: s04e03 In the Beginning, F/M, One Shot, Pre-Canon, Repressed Memories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-01
Updated: 2010-05-01
Packaged: 2017-10-09 06:05:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/83827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterofthemoon/pseuds/waterofthemoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>She knows he was a soldier, but she doesn't want him fighting her war.</i> A story about Mary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Let It Out And Let It In

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for an [**spnland**](http://community.livejournal.com/spnland/profile) writing challenge! The prompt was to write ten drabbles about Mary, and I ended up with something I really love. Thanks to [**unperfectwolf**](http://unperfectwolf.livejournal.com/profile) for looking this over! ♥

Mary doesn't want to be a hunter forever.

She likes being able to protect herself, she likes knowing how to save people, she's aware that their job is important, but she's seen how it messes people up. She's twisted already, and she hates it, hates how she can't have any real friends or a normal life because of who her parents are and what she knows. She wants to run far, far away, find a place where she doesn't have to lie to everyone, where the things in the dark can't touch her family.

She just wants to be safe.

*

John is exactly the kind of boy her parents don't want her to date. Frankly, they'd prefer it if she never dated at all, or maybe if she dated another hunter or a victim's son, someone who _knows_, but not someone like John, whose enthusiasm lights up a room.

John would keep her safe, alive, protected. John would distract her with sunshine smiles and long drives in the car he's saving for and sweet kisses until she forgot there was ever anything to be scared of in the dark.

She's just not sure she can ever forget what she knows.

*

_No matter what you hear or what you see, promise me you won't get out of bed._

Mary wants to dismiss this kid who showed up out of nowhere and thinks he has all the answers, but the words keep reverberating. _Promise me_, he said with unchecked desperation, like whether or not she stays in bed on an arbitrary date years in the future affected him down to the core of his soul. Like he knew something that terrified him.

Mary swears she'll remember, just in case, but then the demon shows up, and the date slips from her mind.

*

Her parents are dead, and John is dead, and she doesn't know what the hell she's supposed to do.

The yellow-eyed bastard who's stolen her dad shows up and offers her a deal, ten years before he comes to collect God knows what, and she takes it. His mouth tastes like sulfur, and she's damned, she knows it, but everyone she loves is dead, and there's nothing else she can do, and the son of a bitch knows it, too.

When John gasps awake in her arms, saying her name, it's all she can do not to completely break down.

*

Sometimes, there's a hard edge to John that makes her think that with the right training, the right books, he could—but she tucks that thought away, keeps it safely hidden out of sight. She knows he was a soldier, but she doesn't want him fighting her war. She's chosen to stand down.

They stay in Lawrence. John has his job at the garage, which keeps him busy and happy, and Mary uses the money from her parents' life insurance to put a down payment on a house. It's a good house. She already has the nursery room picked out.

*

Mary discovers she's pregnant on a Thursday morning. John's already headed to the garage, and she thinks maybe she'll go down and surprise him, but something in her wants to wait. She wants to keep this to herself a little while longer.

John's overjoyed when he finally figures it out, and Mary wonders if she would've held out so long if she was someone like John should've married, someone normal. He paints the nursery a brilliant yellow that reminds her of his smiles, and she rests her hand over the ticking clock in her belly that feels like a promise.

*

When the baby comes—ten fingers, ten toes, and screaming his head off—Mary names him Dean. It's after her mom, of course, but she can't help but half-remember something else, fluttering at the back of her mind where she can't quite get a grasp on it.

She looks at her baby, though, her and John's son that they brought into the world, and she knows his name has to be Dean. She can feel it in her bones.

_Angels are watching over you_, she whispers over his crib every night, and sometimes she wonders about the truth of that.

*

Sam's born four years later, and Dean is instantly enthralled. He trails after her everywhere, trying to help her feed Sam and change his diapers. He spends hours playing quietly in the nursery and keeps asking when Sam will be big enough to play with him.

Dean even sleeps in Sam's crib sometimes, curled protectively around him. Mary thinks about asking the pediatrician if that's normal, but she decides that he's still a Campbell in his blood, and God knows that nothing about her family has ever resembled normal.

She's a Winchester now, though, and she's not like her family.

*

That yellow-eyed bastard finally comes calling, just like he said, and Mary doesn't stay out of his way. She _can't_. He already took her parents and tried to take John; he's not getting Sammy, too, no matter what she promised him.

He pins her to the wall, the ceiling, and splits her gut open with a twist of his hand. It _hurts_, and she's going to die any minute, and her family will never, ever be safe.

The reaper appears before the fire does, her eyes full of ageless pity, and Mary says no. She'll stay behind and keep watch.

*

Mary protects her house. There's a poltergeist here now, a mean son of a bitch, and she can't—she can't let go. She has to keep protecting these people. It's her job, and it's important, and it's the last thing she'll ever do.

When she watches Sam and Dean, her strong, beautiful boys who save people, there's an echo of memory there, a whisper. There's something in the sloping curve of Sam's jaw and the hard line of Dean's arms.

When she finally looks them in the eye, she remembers, and she forgives them, and then she burns herself out.


End file.
